Lots Going On

Block Count: 34
2 Tops
2 Quilted
2 Trimmed and Bound
2 Finishes

It's been a tad busy over here.

 To Start with I started another project. I decided I wanted to try hand piecing a block/quilt. I have never done basic hand piecing, just English Paper Piecing. It went surprisingly fast. I asked my best friend to give me a color, and she said Chartreuse. So these are the fabrics I pulled.

 This is the second block for the Halloweenies BOM, I'm doing. I love how cute these little guys are. These are Adam (biggest), Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank, Gideon, Hannah, Isaac, and Jeremiah (top to bottom). I think I'm going to have fun naming each of the creatures in this quilt. They just seem to have such personalities.

 I have managed to keep up with the 100 Days 100 Blocks on Instagram. This is Block 7.

 For Mother's Day, my boys got me an essential oil cool mist dispenser. I love it. It changes colors and everything. They love playing in the "smoke" and I think it will help a little bit more during the summer when turning on my wax melter makes my room too hot to bear.

 100 Days Block 8

 My gift to myself on Mother's Day, was to allow myself to part with some of my scraps. My room had gotten to the point where I was feeling way overwhelmed. I decided that I could let myself get rid of some of the super tiny pieces that would take me 3 lifetimes to get through. Here is 2 of the 30 gallon trash bags that I was able to fill and get out of my room. I try to put in some time every day if I can, but it really is more like every other day. I also told myself that I am going to go down to 1 project at a time (with 1 Leader and Ender project as an exception). I need to work on putting what I'm working on away before getting the next project out because it just starts stacking on itself and the parts keep getting separated from each other.

 100 Days Block 9

 100 Days Block 10

 100 Days Block 11

 One of the quilts I really needed to get myself to focus on was this cute Mini for the Fandom in Stitches swap on Instagram. I knew right away what I wanted to do with it, but struggled to get myself to work on it, because you can't chain paper piecing. I added Disney Villains as a border, and then quilted with flames (and added texture to her hair). I also chose to give her a slight smirk instead of a frown because I liked that she did kind of smile at the end of the movie. (If you haven't watched Inside Out, I highly recommend it.) The Villains are (clockwise starting at the top) Lady Tremaine (Cinderella), Wicked Queen (Snow White), Yzma (Emperor's New Groove), Cruella DeVil (101 Dalmations), Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland), Medusa (Rescuers), and Ursula (Little Mermaid). I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out. This had to ship in the last week, so it was a big part of why I haven't posted an update lately.

 This is a little extra I made to ship with my Sadness Mini. This is the Payson, Utah LDS Temple. It is my temple. We can see it from our front porch from Fall to Spring (tree across the street blocks it during the summer). Kyle can usually see it out of his bedroom window, and the boys often want to look for it.

 Here is the first of my hand pieced blocks. I figure this can be a reward when I finish things. Just 1 block at a time after I finish a binding while I still have my hand piecing supplies out.

 100 Days Block 12

 After finishing the hand pieced block, I got a few more Hexie flowers done to swap with my best friend. The yellow is the second one for February, and the greens are my March blocks.

 100 Days Block 13

 Nate started Tee Ball. He is #8 on the Yankees CoEd Kindergarten Team. He's the one in the center spinning around in a shirt that looks like a dress...This momma is going to have to work some hemming magic I think.

 100 Days Block 14

 100 Days Block 15

 100 Days Block 16

This is the other project that has been occupying a lot of my mental power. I designed this to go with the flowers I had the kids in Nate's class make at their Spring Party, and had each of them sign a square. I have (mostly) recreated the flowers they made by using their colors and placing the "inner petal" the way they had on their paper blocks (took pictures). I am giving this to their teacher when it is finished. I was trying to get it done in time for Kindergarten graduation (fail), or Nate's Post Assessment (also failed), but thankfully I am friends with her on Facebook, so I will have no trouble get a hold of her when it is completely finished. She is a quilter, too, so I knew she would appreciate this. It's a bit bigger than I would normally make for a wall hanging, but I just didn't think I could size it down much more than this and still have the right effect. This will be 30 by 36 when done.

One other thing that I didn't get a picture of sooner, though I thought I had. Was these 2 little hexie flowers (1/2 inch hexies). I put these together on the Saturday before Mother's Day at a Funeral. It was a young man whose family is in our ward to passed away in his sleep 6 months into his mission. He will be sorely missed. But I'm grateful for the chance I had to go, and to hear happy stories about him from his parents and siblings. I will always remember his smile. I don't know that I ever really saw him without one. I took the boys to the viewing because Nate had known him, just a little bit, because he was his preschool teacher's son, and he would play with the kids when he came home from school for lunch, while they waited for us parents to pick them up. Now when we pass the Stake Center, Nate will say, "That's where we said good-bye to Jeremy. One day we'll be resurrected because Jesus was resurrected. But we don't know when we'll be resurrected." It such a sweet little testimony from my 5 year old, that makes me so happy to know that he listens to what he is taught at church. It was said with such confidence, and such love. He truly teaches me sometimes.